Happiness depends upon ourselves. To live happily is an inward power of the soul.
— Marcus Aurelius

Yessssssssssssssss.

Life is the best gift; the rest is extra.
- Swahili proverb

In the divine economy of salvation, no sincere effort remains fruitless,
even when human eyes can perceive nothing but failure.
- St. Edith Stein

We don’t pray to change God’s mind. We pray to change our souls. Our prayers won’t alter His plan; they will help us to find peace with that plan.
- Elizabeth Foss

The pleasure of doing a thing in the same way at the same time every day, and savoring it, should be noted.
— Arnold Bennett

I’ve heard a lot of good things about the book He Leadeth Me, by Fr. Walter J. Ciszek. It’s a true story of how he (Fr. Ciszek) was captured by the Russian army during World War II and spent 23 years in Soviet prisons and labor camps. He tells about how he survived those years through prayer and kept his faith and trust in God.

I’ve had the book in my possession for a while now (probably almost a year). I’ve started reading a couple of times before, but never stuck with it past the first chapter (pitiful, I know).

I finally started reading it again the other night and I’m so glad I did (third time’s the charm I guess!). I only read (or re-read) the first chapter, but there is a lot packed in to those seven pages!  It is definitely no coincidence that I picked up this book again this week…

We don’t have to desire much of the things of this world – to be enamored of riches, for example, or greedy or avaricious – in order to have gained this sense of comfort and well-being, to trust in them as our support – and to take God for granted. It is the status quo that we rely on, that carries us from day to day, and somehow we begin to lose sight of the fact that under all these things and behind all these things it is God who supports and sustains us. We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable in the world we have created for ourselves, secure in the established order we have learned to live with, however imperfect it may be, and give little thought to God at all.
Somehow, then, God must contrive to break through those routines of ours and remind us once again…that we are ultimately dependent only upon him, that he has made us and destined us for life with him through all eternity, that the things of this world and this world itself are not our lasting city, that his we are and that we must look to him and turn to him in everything.

I think his words here hit me pretty hard because it’s how I’ve been approaching my life lately and I think probably why I’ve been in a spiritual rut or funk for a while.

We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable in the world we have created for ourselves, secure in the established order we have learned to live with, however imperfect it may be, and give little thought to God at all.

If we’re honest with ourselves and God, many of us probably fall into this a lot (or maybe it’s just me) – taking for granted that “tomorrow will be very much like today…” It’s so easy for me to take the life and the things I have for granted and forget that it all comes from God. I can so easily turn to the world and get caught up in things and simply stop praying regularly and forget God.

What would I (we) do if tragedy struck our lives tomorrow? (Tragedies can come in all forms, shapes, and sizes in our lives.) We don’t like to think about this very often and if/when we do maybe we push it aside thinking that we’re just being paranoid.  And maybe that’s what it is, but if it helps us realize how lucky we are and helps us turn to God, then what’s wrong with that?

Mysteriously, God in his providence must make use of our tragedies to remind our fallen human nature of his presence and his love, of the constancy of his concern and care for us. It’s not vindictiveness on his part; he does not send us tragedies to punish us for having so long forgotten him. The failing is on our part. He is always present and ever faithful; it is we who fail to see him or to look for him in times of ease and comfort, to remember he is there, shepherding and guarding and providing us the very things we come to count on and expect to sustain us every day. Yet we fail to remember that, comfortable as we are in our established order and the status quo, as day follows day.

I guess through my ramblings today, I’m just trying to remind myself (and whoever reads this) that I/we need to be more mindful that God is always present (even if I don’t “feel” like He is).  He patiently waits for us…

God is constant in his love if we will but look to him, he will sustain us in every storm if we will but cry out to him, he will save us if we will but reach our hand to him. He is there, if we will only turn to him and learn to trust in him alone.

How will you reach for God today?

While I naturally search for a button to turn off feelings I assume aren’t good, I am realizing that feeling it all—even if it ain’t rainbows and unicorns—is important. Doubt and Anxiety might not be dressed as attractively as Confidence and Contentment, but they do bring insight. And when they are gone, the new Confidence and Contentment that brew are even better than before. Feelings need to be embraced—all of them. And the not-so-hot ones are a bit like German cockroaches. Killing one doesn’t end the problem. You have to go to the source. Feel it, examine it, trudge through it and move on with the assurance that an emotional buffet that includes a variety of feelings is necessary and good for growth.
- Kelle Hampton

the current temperature in my office = 90 degrees

i wish i had enough reasons/excuses to not be in my office this week.

it’s going to be a long week.

friday (the start of my week off) can’t come soon enough.

We can all get lost at times, lost within ourselves or lost in the world about us. Allow Christ to find you, to speak to you, to ask of you whatever He wants.
– Pope John Paul II